By Josh Meier Permanent state or Temporary circumstance? Someone once said, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” The difference is thinking of poverty as an intrinsic quality versus thinking of it as a temporary circumstance. While that attitude may have

By James Morison (1816-1893) Some of our older theologians—inclusive of many of the “Marrow-men”—spoke much of the appropriating act of faith. It was this act which they supposed to be saving. “In the direct act of saving faith,” says Anderson, “a person appropriates Christ crucified to himself, saying with the heart, I am verily persuaded

By Marcia Hornok Making Assumptions While the Bible has no bloopers, the way we visualize the written Word might.  For example, when Joseph’s eleven brothers came to him, we picture Benjamin as a youth because he was the youngest. However, shortly thereafter, all seventy members of Jacob’s family moved to Egypt, and the name list

By Nate Stevens School Spirit I enjoyed spirit week at my high school, just like every other kid does across America. Our rival was Lawrenceville, a grotesque place just across the New Jersey state line, so we had more than the typical rival history between us. Their school colors were red and white, ours blue

By Randy White Somewhere in the past 40 years “Purpose” has become our god. I suppose Rick Warren revealed this god more than he invented it in his wildly successful book, The Purpose Driven Life. Somewhere, having Purpose (yes, I’m capitalizing it on purpose, since it has taken on a god-like status) became a “must

By David Bechtel On Thursday, August 16th, 2018, the world lost one of its great voices, the “Queen of Soul”—Aretha Franklin. She was perhaps best known for her recording of the song “Respect.” But, perhaps few know that the song was originally written by a man—Otis Redding. Redding wrote and released the hit song “Respect”

By Allen Rea On April 23, 2018, after fighting her disease for a very long time, my mother died. The woman that gave birth to me, that cooked me many meals, that loved and supported my every action, left this world. It has been said that when one loses a parent, he loses a part

By Charlie McCall Endure your suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? (Heb 12:7). A summer staff worker whom I was disciplining made two statements to me. The first was in anger, and I expected it: “You don’t have any right to

By James Morison Saving faith is a kind of knowledge. This is rendered evident by what our Savior says in John 17:3, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” Life eternal is the gift of God (Rom 6:23). It is the gift